


Descendant

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Mad Science, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:09:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The castle's falling down around their ears, but something's nagging at Gojyo. And then he sees what he hadn't even realized he was looking for.</p>
<p>Written for the  'secret child' square in trope bingo.</p>
<p><strong>Please note:</strong> There are offscreen character deaths in this fic (but not of the ikkou). Thanks to emungere for betaing!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Descendant

The whole castle was falling down around their ears, and Gojyo still couldn't stop looking around at shit. Stupid, but he kept feeling something nagging at him, like he'd left his keys on the counter at home or something. _Sorry, Hakkai, I didn't mean to die, I just remembered I left the oven on._ The walls shook again, and he could hear someone shouting. It might have been Sanzo. Hard to say at this point.

And then he looked up at the canisters clustered against the far wall. "Well," Gojyo said. "Shit."

Goku, terrifyingly focused despite everything, grabbed him by the shoulder. "Come on, the whole place is--" He followed Gojyo's gaze to see what his friend was staring at. "Shit," he echoed, then took a breath. "Yaone!" he called. "We need you here, now!"

Yaone's voice was muffled. "I can't just--"

"Now," Goku said. "We need _her."_

Yaone came, eventually, half-dragging Hwan behind her. "What?" she said, and then looked up to see what they were all staring at. "Oh dear," she said, her voice barely audible above the sounds of collapsing metal and exploding glass.

 

Most of the lifeforms in the tanks were already dead -- they'd been dead all along or their life support had gone when the power first went out -- but there were still a few on backup generators, their heartbeats kept artificially slow. "They're stabilized," Hwan said. They'd untied her hands so she could work, but Gojyo was keeping a close eye on her. "Most of them can't live outside the tank. I can shut the systems down and anything that can leave might be able to, but--"

"Hakkai and Sanzo can't hold this place up much longer," Gojyo said. "Sink or swim, I guess. What about the kid?" _The kid_ was really an infant, curled up in a small horizontal tank held two or three feet above eye level. Her hair was very dark in the half-light, but it might have been red.

"As far as I know, she's perfectly healthy," Hwan said. "I believe she's premature, though, so she might require--"

Yaone, who had been flipping through the backup paperwork, gave a little gasp. "Gojyo-san," she said, and shoved a sheet of paper at Gojyo.

Gojyo stared at it for a few seconds. "Hwan and I'll take the kid," he said. "Help the others get out." He held the blade of his shakujo at Hwan's neck so there wouldn't be any confusion.

"I understand," Yaone said. She put down the rest of the papers - in a neat, careful stack, even as the world was hanging on for dear life - and headed for Goku.

"Hurry the fuck up," Gojyo said. "I know you wanted to die with the bitch, but having this place drop on your head'll be a lot worse than that."

"I understand," Hwan said, her voice dull and resigned. She'd lost a lot of passion since Yaone had ripped the knife out of her hand and demanded she help them get out. She was probably still suicidal, but she'd lost a lot of her ambition. That might be enough.

They still didn't know where Kougaiji and Jien were. No time to look or care. Just had to keep moving. Get Hakkai safe. Get the kid (shit, the piece of paper didn't even give her name, if she even had one) out of there.

Hwan pressed a few more buttons, and the tanks started shuddering open.

The shaking was stronger now. It'd be a miracle if any of them made it out. If Hakkai made it out. No time to worry about that. No time to do anything but grab the kid and run, and run, and run; run long after you were past the castle, just in case more debris decided to come crashing down, just in case someone who wanted you dead was still alive. Maybe because Gojyo knew that when everything finally stopped he'd have to think about what had happened and about the kid in his arms.

Who had bright red hair and eyes and a _tremendously_ strong pair of lungs. Probably hungry, not that there was any food for miles. She fell asleep against his chest, eventually, but it got Gojyo in the gut that he couldn't do anything but hold her and keep moving. He couldn't see Hwan any more. She'd gotten out; beyond that was her choice, he guessed.

"So," Gojyo said, when his legs couldn't take any more and apparently no one else's could either. "How many of us are alive?"

Sanzo had been carrying Hakkai slung across his shoulder; now he was slumped next to Hakkai's unconscious body, pretty white robes smeared with blood. "Pretty sure he is."

"You?"

Sanzo shrugged. "Not sure. Ask me later. Goku's all right."

Gojyo nodded. That was...well. A shitload more than he'd expected, really. All four of them alive, or at least mostly alive.

"Where'd the kid come from?"

Gojyo took a long time to answer. "She was in a tank."

Sanzo looked over at him, long and considering. "I take it you're already attached."

"Well," he said. "It's kinda more complicated than that." He fished around in his pocket until he found the paper Yaone had given him and handed it to Sanzo.

You had to hand it to the asshole; he'd gone through all that shit with his reading glasses intact. He scanned the paper briefly, blinking through the blood and sweat in his eyes, and Gojyo watched his face change about halfway down the page. He folded it back up and returned it to Gojyo. "You'll have to tell him," Sanzo said.

"I know," Gojyo said.

Hakuryuu came drifting in and landed carefully on Hakkai's shoulder, keening anxiously. "He's alive," Sanzo said. "Relax."

Goku found them a few minutes later, and didn't say anything. He just grabbed Sanzo and hung on for dear life.

"That hurts," Sanzo said. "I broke a fucking rib."

"You _died,"_ Goku said into his shoulder.

"I'm fine," he said.

"I felt it," Goku insisted.

Sanzo didn't say anything, but he didn't shove Goku off.

Gojyo was starting to feel awkward when Hakkai coughed awake. "Is everyone all right?"

"Sanzo died," Goku said.

"'m not dead," Sanzo muttered, finally disentangling himself from Goku and attempting to get up.

Goku caught him before he collapsed. "Can you drive?" he asked Gojyo.

"Yeah," Gojyo said.

"I think there's some water in Jeep, we can give that to the baby. Hopefully we're not too far from a town."

Gojyo nodded.

 

Gojyo drove. His injuries were starting to catch up with him, but he could hold it together until they had a place to stay. Goku held the baby in the passenger seat and fought with the map. Sanzo and Hakkai drifted in and out.

"Goku," Hakkai said dreamily. "What are you holding?"

"It's a baby," Goku said. "She," he corrected, quickly. "She's a baby."

"Why is there an infant in the car?"

Gojyo and Goku exchanged glances. Gojyo gripped the steering wheel tighter. "She was at the lab," he said. "In a tank."

"Oh," Hakkai said, as if that was enough for it to all make sense. Gojyo let out a breath and drove on.

 

Yaone found him at the inn, smoking outside 'cause of the baby. They'd found formula in the town. The innkeeper had a crib, and he'd helped Goku drag it into the room Gojyo and Hakkai shared. At some point, Hakkai would have to read that paper. Gojyo'd only read it once, but much of it was burned into his mind: _Removed from the body of Cho Kanan; half-breed; sterile, like all others of her kind; kept in stasis until a further purpose can be found, perhaps research?_

"Is she all right?" Yaone asked. "I have some herbs, they'll help her build strength." She pulled a pouch from her sash and pressed it into Gojyo's hands. "Lord Kougaiji is wounded, I can't stay long, but I wanted to give them to you. I salvaged as much as I could, but...."

"Is--"

"It's just the two of us," she said, her mouth twisting. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Gojyo felt empty. "Me too."

"Are you going to be all right? Traveling with--"

"We'll be fine," he said. "We made it so far, you know? Should be easier going back. At least you guys won't be trying to kill us any more, right?"

"Yeah," she said, softly. They stood there for a while. Didn't seem like there was much to say. "Did you name her?"

"I was thinking about Lirin," he said. Because he had been, once his mind had moved off the steady beat of _not Kanan._

"That'd be nice." She hugged him, tight, and he tried not to cry on her hair. He did anyway, a little. He'd lost Jien a long time ago, really, but it still hurt.

"I'm pregnant," she said into his chest, and fucked if he knew what to say to that. He hugged her tighter. "I don't know if...." she said. "It didn't seem to matter, and...."

"Hey," he said. "If you want an uncle, I'm here, okay? No matter what."

"Thank you, Gojyo-san," she said.

 

The baby wasn't in her crib when he came back, and his blood froze. Hakkai didn't have her and he didn't see her when he checked Goku and Sanzo's room. He found Goku chatting up a couple of the inn regulars at the bar, leaning back in his stool, looking like any other young man flirting with a bunch of strangers.

When the hell had that happened?

Goku grinned when he saw Gojyo, but the grin faded when he saw the worry on Gojyo's face. "What's wrong?"

"Have you seen--"

"She's with Sanzo," Goku said. "He was reading to her."

Gojyo shook his head but he went back into the room to double check. A closer look revealed that they were both asleep in Sanzo's bed, the baby half-hidden under Sanzo's newspaper. She'd curled up next to him like she belonged there.

Gojyo went to pick her up and Sanzo slapped his hand away.

Gojyo glared at him, but Sanzo was still asleep. "Fine," he said, "you'll give her up quick enough when she starts bawling."

Hakkai was sitting up when Gojyo came into their room. "The baby--"

"She's with Sanzo," Gojyo said, rubbing at his arm; the skin under his limiter itched. "She's fine."

"Sanzo," Hakkai repeated skeptically.

"The doc won't let him smoke 'til he's better. She's fine."

Hakkai had been out for so long he'd lost weight, and he looked pale, even against the white inn sheets. "I read the paper from the lab," he said. "You left it on the nightstand."

Gojyo walked over to the bed and sat on the edge. "I'm sorry. I was gonna tell you, but you've mostly been asleep."

"No," Hakkai said. "It's all right." He reached up and pushed Gojyo's hair from his face. "I'd like to see her."

"Yeah," Gojyo shifted his weight, moving closer. "'Course." He leaned back and let Hakkai wind an arm around him. "But I wouldn't want to pry her away from Sanzo right now."

Hakkai chuckled and winced. "I see," he said.

"Doc said you don't have many bones that aren't broken," Gojyo observed.

"I'm well aware." Hakkai nestled into his side. "Thank you."

"Nothin' to thank me for."

"Thank you," he said. "Regardless."

"Her name's Lirin," Gojyo said.

"Lirin," Hakkai repeated, and closed his eyes. "That's lovely."


End file.
